SPEAKER_00 0:04

Your host, Amber Howard. Your weekly host of climate, inspiration, and strategies to have your small business and whole life five. We bring you incredible guests who share their real life experiences of being an entrepreneur so you can have your whole life work. Now, here's your host, Amber Howard.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Welcome back to What Would Amber Do? It is my honor this morning to be speaking with Patricia Salib. Patricia is an entrepreneur, coach, co-founder of Worthy Essentials, and president of the Mint Media Group. Patricia has spent her career creating safe spaces for people to have a voice, especially in the LGBTQ community. Patricia and her co-founder Alia are out to create a movement of people who are head over heels in love with themselves. And I am head over heels in love with Patricia. Patricia, thank you so much for being here this morning with me.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Oh, it's my pleasure. And I'm thrilled to be here. You know, I just love you. And I'm I'm thrilled to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

It's gonna be a big old love fest today. It will be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

We already swooned before this started.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

So for some context, Patricia and I met, I was her coach in a leadership training program a few years ago. And uh it was a real intense program, and it was a great way, actually, in hindsight, to get related with someone because you're kind of right in the fire with one another. Patricia was being developed, I was being developed, and you know, it just forged, I think this is this beautiful relationship. And I um it's just been such an honor to watch you, you know, and your family over the last couple of years grow and develop. And you've had a pretty massive transition since the beginning of COVID. Why don't you share a little about that?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Totally, yeah. And I think we've been on this journey, as you know, for quite a while, and it's endless the journey of becoming, you know, and continuing to reclaim yourself. Um, COVID was interesting because we had been doing quite a bit of personal growth work, um, yet still in the matrix of it all. Like we found ourselves, our life, you know, so busy, so um predictable, and that we were kind of being like, you know, we're just on this hamster wheel. And when COVID hit, um, we weren't comfortable sending our kids to school. And um, and we had always talked about living out west. So we decided to leave the city, pack as much as we could fit in our car, and stay off the beaten path and explore. And we started in Alberta, we did 30-day, you know, um Airbnbs and um and we visited, I think we moved 16 times, um, but we visited lots of spaces across Canada now the or across British Columbia and Alberta. Um, but that wasn't the, you know, that wasn't the important piece. I think what we what was actually happening is just um letting go of needing the approval and validation of others, letting go of the way things need to look, having the space to be out in nature on our own, to really choose what we wanted our life to look like and um reflect on where we were out of alignment with ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

I remember watching like when you posted about that trip that you were gonna take and that you were kind of uprooting from Ontario and and I just was like, wow, like that takes courage. I think it in you know, the big thing that I've really am present to in your journey is you follow your heart, Patricia. Like, and it takes courage to follow your heart and and seek that alignment when so much of our culture tells us that what it looks like to live a successful, happy life looks a certain way.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Right. And this is the tragedy of it all. Like we live in a definition of success defined by culture. And, you know, my partner and I, we did that for over a decade. We checked the boxes, it looked damn good on paper, and you know, reached a point where it was very unfulfilling. And there was so much about our lives that we didn't choose, like really truly choose. And, you know, we often play the role as the fixers and the caregivers in our homes or in our, you know, um, in our families. Um, there was just so much that we um that we were going along with without consciously choosing it. And I think we almost needed to step away to create more space and to um deepen our transformation, our personal transformation. Um, and then, you know, when when you connect to yourself, you really do know what you want. All the doubt is fear. You really do, right? We come into this world like so connected to our intuition, and um, and there's a lot of distractions.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

I love that we do know what we want. I think more often than not, we we got we get so caught up in not knowing how to have it, so we won't even our desire muscle becomes so weak because you know, there's so many outside influences telling us what we should want. And I I love you that you use the word tragedy because I think it is a tragedy. I think so much, and I I can't speak for outside of North America, but I suspect it's similar. So much of our definitions of success is based on achievement.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

And it's very, you know, and it's very masculine and it's very, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that except for we tie our sense of self-worth. And I know this is like, you know, a big, big part of what it is that you're out to have conversations, and so am I. We tie our self-worth to our to our how successful we are. So then whether we're worthy or not, yeah, is directly tied to whether we keep achieving. And if we stop achieving, and it's not growing, it's different from growing, you know, achieving material things or achieving that next run on our corporate career letter or achieving, you know, the next relationship status. You know, if we stop achieving, then we stop having value.

SPEAKER_03 6:17

Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

And that is tragic because that, you know, you and I know, and I I know from the training that you've done that you actually like there's a whole model or a you know, way of looking at self-worth that I'd love to hear you share about, but self-worth has nothing to do with any of that.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Totally. And it is really unfortunate. It's like we are given a definition of success by culture, by our parents, by you know, this world that we live in, and we live by that script. You wonder why so many people are asleep at the wheel. Their life lacks aliveness, it lacks self-expression and creativity and joy. Like, how many people are truly getting out of bed, lit up, inspired, so excited about their day? It's just not versus like going through the motion and and half dead. I'm sorry to say. And then we I'd say more than half dead for a lot of people. But our our years fly by, we check some boxes, and then we die. And then that's that. You know, that's what we did with this extraordinary gift called our life. And unfortunately, it starts at such a young age. We do it with our children, we do it in their earliest of years. We need them to perform, we need to put them in this course and that course, and you know, and we we are constantly telling them that they need to achieve, they need to perform, they need to accomplish to be worthy. And that's another tragedy. It's a whole other conversation.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Well, it really is, and it's interesting because I I had a I interviewed someone from the introduction, another like someone I coached, and he's 22, and he talks about how like young people don't have their own models for how to derive value from the for themselves. And that really like he yeah, I mean, it's a big conversation, right? Because he puts that at the source of a lot of why young people today deal with suicidal ideation, right? Yeah, because they're not able to source their own sense of self-worth. So this conversation is pervasive, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:20

And so you're so right about that because we start very young, and you know, children come into this world in the present, in the now, they're lit up, they're inspired, they're in wonder, they are there's a curiosity to them that you don't find in adults, and we slowly beat it out of them. And by their teen years, they're like, hoodie up, like whatever, leave me alone. You know, they've got little respect for their for their grown-ups, and and they're so disconnected from themselves that they don't even know what doesn't feel right. So it's it starts so young, and you know, this is this is the tragedy. Like, imagine if we didn't have to spend our lives reclaiming ourselves. Imagine if our parents could truly see us, they could hear us, they could acknowledge who we were, and that we knew we were worthy, we knew we were enough as we were without needing to be anything else.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Hmm. You know, I remember when Keegan did the landmark forum uh at 10, they had this exercise that the parents did where they uh where they had these massive whiteboards. And they, you know, on one of the whiteboards, they asked us, what are your concerns for your child? And like within like, I don't know, like a blink, this whole huge whiteboard fills up with all of these parents' concerns. Wait, too much screen time, bullying, sex, like I could go, you know, you could just go on. And then on the other board, they had us say, they asked us the question, what is your, you know, what is a good child? What is a good parent?

SPEAKER_03 9:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

And I remember sitting there in that room realizing that I was parenting Kean through my concerns for him. Yeah. And they weren't even his concerns. Right. And they had nothing to do with him. And at that moment, I was like, wow, like what if I could just be with my son?

SPEAKER_03 10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

And like, and then learn and be with his concerns. And you know, it's so beautiful. Five years later, we had just had Thanksgiving, and I'm here in California, and the family's back in in Ontario, and we were on, we go around every year and say what we're grateful for. Yeah. And and Keynes 15 years old, and and what he said is like, I'm so grateful. I have a good everything's good in my life.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

My relationships with my parents are good, school's good, you know, I'm feeling good. And it's like, wow, how many 15-year-olds can say that? Right. How many, you know, like and even express that? And and um that is what, and I know that a big part of that has been me doing the work on myself to fall in love with myself, because that's really the journey that I've been on for the last five years, is a journey to fall in love with myself and love myself as much as I love the world.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Right, totally, and so beautiful. And you're so right about we project everything onto our kids. And anything that we don't heal will show up in our children. Like if we're not motivated enough to do it for ourselves, know that these patterns are just going to be passed on to the next generation and we'll often destroy the relationship we have with our children by our own unconscious patterns. The thing that matters to us most, the thing that we want so deeply, you know, we'll say that we want them to open up to us or we want them to feel comfortable, we want them to come to us when something's wrong, yet we berade them and we make them wrong, or we shame them, or we blame them. It's our actions often don't align with what we truly want. And you can apply this to anything, whether it's our children, whether it's a relationship, whether it's a friendship. And this goes back to self-love really truly being everything. Um, and doing that inner work and becoming whole as you are is what creates your entire life. It's everything. And it's not a concept like it's presented, like, oh, self-love, bubble bath, glass of wine, like let me treat myself today. Self-love is a deep um desire to live in alignment with who you are at every moment, to make sure your actions are a reflection of what you truly want. And you've healed all old wounds and patterns. So there's a there's a um a much deeper journey into loving yourself and into self-care that can actually heal your world that will allow you to show up for others in the way that you want to. That's why it's so important.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Yeah, I really hear congruence in what you're saying and the important, you know, and this is one of the things that I think is most important to me. And it's a journey, I don't know what somewhere to get to, but the to be someone who keeps living congruent with who I say I am and my values and who I, you know, my commitments, and then getting out of the way, right? All of the things that are in the way of me being able to me doing that on a on a day-to-day basis. And it's not about attaining some perfection at all, because you know, I I actually have gotten to the place and it took something where I can like love my flaws and love all of me, you know, and not even that they're flaws, but just there are so many amber is not one thing. There are so many aspects of the me, and there are some things that really work and some things that don't, and I can be responsible for those things and and still love those parts of me that maybe don't work the way I want them to, uh, which is which is huge. And like you want to talk about expanding your capacity for love. Like fall in love with yourself first. And um, you know, when we did the we did the interview for the book, you know, the book launched yesterday, The Woman Who Lead, that I co-authored, and and people ask me, well, what's my number one tip? And and I'm I I'll never forget reading Louise Hayes' book, You Can Heal Your Life, where she talks about this. And it's like, there's no other work to do. Like, don't worry about your finances, don't worry about your weight, don't worry about your marriage. Like, there is literally like it's like monopoly, right? Do not pass go, like, do not go to go to jail, do not pass go, do not like collect 200 bucks, like whatever it is. The the first step to having your life really work and to create your life is to fall in love with yourself. So go do like hire a coach, do a program, read a book, go sit on a mountain, whatever you gotta do to fall in love with yourself, because it starts, that's that's everything.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Totally. And that that is all there is to do. And whether you talk about parenting or relationships or career, you can pretty much like they all go in the same box because it all starts with you. And there, if if you do that properly, watch in amazement how those things fall into place without having to do anything to get them, to do anything to make your kid behave, to do anything to get the relationship, to do anything to make your career excel. No, you don't have to do anything. You can actually just come back into who you are and become the greatest version of yourself. And that's why it's a journey and it's a practice and it's a commitment to continue evolving, and that's what creates your entire life.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Hmm. I just got something at a deeper level. I was in a course over the weekend, and the leader said, you know, so much of the time people are just taking actions or doing from the domain of doing, but there's no being present. And I was like, Well, what do you mean? Like I thought we were human beings, like there's always we're always being something. But it's like conscious being.

unknown 15:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

And that's the only thing we really have any control over anyway. And what she said to me is like when you're being, you know, the doing is effortless, which is what you're pointing to. But I think it's that conscious being. We are always being something, but most of the time who we're being comes from some default, from some wound from the past. It's not a conscious being-ness. So when we can get to the point where more often than not, who we're being is a conscious creation, then yeah, the results, the actions, we just know what to do to what actions to take it. And it is effortless because I think to your earlier point, Patricia, we're in alignment.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Because we're not going to do things that are inconsistent with our our our our core self.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

That's right. And and to your point, yes, we're human beings, we're not human doings, and we're usually in a doing state. And a doing state has us function from old patterns. It has us force a result, it has us check the box, it gives us a to-do list. And that's why even having some future projection, it's fine to have an intention, but to say I want to accomplish X and to move into a mechanical checkbox state of getting that done is just another way of not being present. So you want to, you want to, you want to start seeing your life grow in the way that you want it to. It's all about this moment. And being is about your presence and the quality of your presence right now. And then from there, acting each moment in alignment with who it is you are and what it is that you value. It's that baby step, right? And and if you practice that, like is this the ultimate self-love. Like I want to give you a rundown of just self, how I define self-love. Yes, and this breakdown because there's such a misconception of what self-love is. And we've got some romanticized, you know, idea of what self-love is, and a lot of it's BS. Um, but self-love is acting in alignment with yourself, moment by moment. That takes something. That means what I'm putting in my body, how I move my body, where I'm living, who I'm spending my time with, what my friendships look like, what I'm creating in my career. That means your whole life begins to start being in alignment with the highest version of yourself. Okay. Number two, having love and compassion for yourself, not perfection, but being able to say, that was my level of consciousness at that moment. I did that, that's where I was. Now I can evolve. And love and compassion allows us to not slip back into our ego of guilt and shame and blame. I can't believe I did that. Oh, damn it, I ate the cake and I'm now feeling bad about myself. No, I did it. I did it, it's done. That's where I was. Now, what action can I take in this moment right now that's in alignment with me? Number two or number three, sorry, boundaries. Something that us women, especially me, are terrible at. But being able to have boundaries with our families and in some cultures like mine, that's just, you know, um, superiority or um uh certain things trump boundaries. But being able to be unapologetic about your boundaries allows you to honor yourself, your feelings, your needs without letting culture or um certain people in your life move you in a place that you don't want to move. And that's being able to say no, being able to know what um what isn't for you, no longer abandoning yourself. And when I talk about no longer abandoning yourself, that's in all spaces. That's in friendships, that's in relationships, that's at work, and that is to yourself. And that goes back to being in alignment. It also means self-love is not needing the approval and validation of others, of giving up, you know, needing to be liked, that everyone is gonna like you, that you need to be nice. The whole idea of nice kills authentic. Why don't we just move to being authentic? And giving up being the caregiver, the fixer. Um, so it really is, you know, it manifests in so many different ways the way that we abandon ourselves, when we say yes, when we want to say no, when we move into fixing or needing to take care of someone, um, when we are not meeting our own needs, when we're in lack versus abundance, when we are not intentional with our time and our energy. And it all points back to alignment. It's a lot of information.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

No, you know what really stood out for me there, and it's it's it's still something that I like. I want to be careful with the language that I choose because I really do believe believe that words create your world. Um, so I'm still discovering the opportunity of boundaries. Because you're absolutely right. And I think we have a huge narrative, and especially when it comes to women, that woman having boundaries is like somehow selfish, or that you and so we really have an opportunity to to redefine for ourselves what does it look like, what does it mean to have boundaries? And it and when you change those dance steps with your family members, it takes something because we train the people around us how to be with us. And you know, coming out here to to California you know, to to be with Peter, it's like I noticed some conversations with my eldest son Matthew, I was like, oh my God, like in the absence of having you and your you you and your siblings and your grandmother to manage and control, I just started to try and to manage and control him because that's like what I know, and that's how I've known to to deal with the uncertainty or you know, needing to get things done from that very like forcing energy of you know, um, making things happen with people versus just like, wow, I'm surrounded by these like and and one of the things that you said about being nice versus being authentic, I know for me, Patricia, I've really had it had to. Overcome like keeping people small and having it that people were too small for my communication, right? But when you can just get that you're surrounded by giants, you know, because I really am, and I know you are too. Like we have these massive human beings in our life. Your father is one of them. I adore him. He's like the specialist place in my heart. Like with these incredibly capable people around us, and it's our ego that has them be small because we create them in our listening of them that they can't handle our authenticity.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Right. Totally. And it was going back to our past and our wounds that has us feel the need to care and fix everybody. You know, I love my dad, but I resigned as his therapist, you know, and stepping away from the city was that was a big part of it, you know, that I no longer and now I can see when he's ready to hear me or when he just is trying to convince me of something. Um, and I can say, I love you, but I'm not gonna listen to this, or I love you, but I'm not gonna sit on the phone for two hours with you self-deprecating. Like I can say those words, and these are the boundaries that we can start to create for ourselves that honor ourselves, that don't just have us do or play this role of being nice. We teach our little girls to be nice. We we groom them from the youngest. Oh, you got to be nice and be polite, and we tell them what to say and when to say it and how to say it, and we kill their authentic voice. And by the time we're grown, we are so worried about whether people like us, are we polite? Are we being nice? And then we do things and we're resentful and we're angry and we're sitting in resentment and we're we're we've because we've abandoned ourselves, and and that's the shame.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Such I'm so grateful that you brought that word up because you know, I was wanted to talk with you about like what are the barriers to self-love. And I think, you know, like you just like that's probably the biggest one, right? Like the the we create ourselves, that the we create or we have it, it lives for us that there are aspects of ourselves that are unknowable because if people knew them, then they would just not, we wouldn't be worthy of love.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Right. And when you have to suppress who it is that you are because you are trying to please people around you, you are abandoning yourself. That's why each thing that I point, it's like a big, it's a big umbrella, but there's many things underneath it. So the moment I don't show up as who I am, and I used to have different roles for different people. I used to have so much social anxiety going to a work event or having to meet this person or that person, I'd be so exhausted by the end of the night because it was like, oh, you know, have you ever found that sometimes you just want to be alone and you don't want to see the world? You don't want to talk to anybody? Because we're so exhausted by the masks that we wear. We're so exhausted by the faces we put on for people. And why not get to a place where you can show up authentically, unapologetically as the biggest, highest version of yourself? And what's meant to come will come. And what's meant to go will go. And being okay with the fact that not everyone's for you, not every friendship is gonna work right now, you know, and letting that be. And in fact, I found that to be the most powerful way to create my world because you start attracting a certain type of energy and you detract a different type of energy that you don't want anyway.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

My friend Jeanette, who uh actually introduced me to Lamarck, she said once it's like you start to vibe, and I didn't really fully get it at the time, but she said you start to vibrate at a different frequency than people. So as you go through your life and you grow, and it's you know, like just people will harmonize with different people at different points on their journey.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Yes. And you can actually feel energy before anybody speaks. I mean, I'm at a point now where I feel energy the moment it walks in the room.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Well, and then there's like just people, right? Which I was like, I've been so excited like for this conversation all week, right? And you know, once in a while we pop up on each other's social media, you know, posts and we comment and stuff. But like there are people whose energy, I'm like, oh, I get to be in Patricia's energy. Like I just get to in like like being with you, you know, and and and so like part, I think what I'm hearing you saying, like honoring yourself is like honoring when you that that feeling you have when you're around certain people. And then it's like, okay, like listening for that and being like, I'm gonna choose to spend my time with people who like make me feel good. Yes. And I make them feel good, and that's like an act of self-love as well.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Yes, totally. And it is, you do feel it, you feel it in your body. And that became a big part of my last year, and a big part of my practice is being very discerning about where I spend my time and energy and with who. And imagine if we taught that to our kids at a young age. You know, I teach my children, not everyone's your people. Choose your people, not everyone's your people, rather than trying to get them to fit in, buying them the sneakers and the pogs and the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, to hopefully fit into their peers so that they we teach them to abandon themselves at a very young age. And then we wonder why all these peer pressures and circles and that we're in, um, until we later have to reclaim who we are. It's just totally backwards. And now, as grown adults, we have the opportunity to choose. And we still have so many circles that exist in our lives, whether it's friends, family, work that are not in alignment with us, but we feel obligated or we, you know, are comfortable. So self-love is unapologetically not abandoning yourself. And the degree that you take that on is no longer leaking your vital energy. Like imagine if you stored all of your vital energy and poured it into the things that really filled your soul. You want to take inventory. Where is it leaking? How many places is it leaking to, and with who right now?

SPEAKER_02 28:23

My friend Chris calls it chasing the tip of your authentic desire. You know, like what are those experiences in life or people or you know, that are like a 10 out of 10 for you? And like, why would you not settle, but like you could be comfortable and even happy with a life that's seven, eight, nine, whatever, but like 10's possible. So why not spend your life creating, you know, experiences that give you the ultimate pleasure and the ultimate desire and have you feeling, you know, um, like really like your everything about the experience is in alignment with what it is that you say matters to you. Totally. But show me a world, like show me a generation of kids that grow up like that, and show me a world of adults where everyone's living like that, you know, that that is something that's a commitment, a stand that you know, I'm a hundred percent behind because I think that kind of world would be night and day to the one we live today.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

A hundred percent. And when you're so connected to yourself, you can't unfeel that. You know, when you are really truly connected to yourself, you know who you want to be with and who you don't. It's that we've just been we've been so groomed and accustomed to having to abandon ourselves or having to please or or just being in this network or being amongst family members that really aren't in alignment, you know. I remember um feeling like there's so many people in my family, I don't even know. We don't truly know each other, you know? And and yes, you can unapologetically be at a 10, 11, 12, 13. It's it's limitless.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

So the practices that you and Alia promote and you know, around like essential oils, journaling. Talk to me a little bit about that. How do they help you stay in alignment?

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Right. So the practice is it's it's you know, the oils are a it's like you're walking out in the rain and you need an umbrella. They're a tool. They're one tool. They're not necessary for self-love and self-care, but they're a tool. And so is knowing what it is you're practicing. So when I talk about being intentional, not abandoning yourself, no longer being a pleaser, um, uh, having boundaries, having love and compassion of self, everything about self-love or lack thereof is rooted in a death, in a lack of worthiness that stemmed from our earliest of years. So everything we're practicing brings us back to feeling worthy, feeling enough. When we abandon ourselves, it's because we think we have to. When we put ourselves in environments or with people that aren't in alignment with us, it's a lack of our own worthiness and it's a self-abandonment in its own way. So when we talk about practicing, self-care is the practice of self-love and it is a daily practice. So something like journaling is being able to keep track of your, you know, of your thoughts, putting it on paper, developing the eye of the witness. So it's not just all swirling around in your head. It re-anchors you into the moment and it allows you to witness your thoughts and sometimes vomit journal when you got to get them all out, to see what's really there. So journaling is sort of the beginning of seeing and beginning to see what's there. Um, the pause, I always say, you know, the pause, you can you can measure a person's growth by their ability to pause because um we have an automatic way of responding to things that's from our path from our patterns, our lack, our triggers, and being able to create a gap and choose a conscious reaction, a conscious response versus a reaction is everything, whether in relationships, with our children, with what we do next. If we just pause and consciously chose, um our life would look different.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

You know, it's different, a little bit of different language, but I mean, from the work I do in resilience, what we call it calming. But it's like when when you get triggered or activated, which is basically, you know, there's a pattern running in your your neocortex. There's a way you expect things to show up. Yeah. When they don't show up the way you expect them to, you now have you're disrupted. There's a gap between your expectation and the reality that you're experiencing. And it's funny because we also know that whatever the reality is that we're experiencing is perceived anyway. Yeah. It's not necessarily true, but it's inside of our perception. So then it's like you're in a part of your nervous system, you know, that automatic fight, fright, amygdala response. So calming, you know, often breathing, pausing, yeah, gets your brain into another part of your nervous system that allows you to then bring all your tools to bear, make a conscious choice about how you want to respond to something versus react. So, you know, what you're saying is, you know, it's grounded in neuroscience. It's and it's brilliant because this is like this is how we take back, how we get out of that automated, you know, and we actually what I say is like getting into the driver's seat of our own mind.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Yes, totally. And if we just did that, if we just pause, and people who have kids like me who are triggered all day long, I have I have to practice pausing all day. It is a practice because the moment we're triggered, we're in a pattern. We're in the past, we're in a pattern, we're reactive. But if we can pause, it's the beginning of choosing an action and creating our life. So that's a critical piece. Um, being intentional, another critical piece. This goes back to being discerning and having boundaries. So intentional is all about choosing where your time and energy goes and with who, what you are and are not creating, what you are saying yes or no to. But it's again, it's sort of a everything is meant to, each practice is like a verb. It's meant to put you into an action and it's a reminder and an affirmation of like, am I really being intentional right now with my time? Am I sitting on social media for two hours scrolling? Damn it, my screen time says four hours, and I think I don't have time to do that new project I've been waiting to do. That's what intentional looks like. Getting rid of the BS and focusing on what really matters to you.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

So if you were someone who was like starting this journey, right? Like you've just kind of awakened on some level, you know, like and I think for many of us, it kind of starts with our like we get to a point where we realize our lives just aren't working.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

You know, whatever our life looks like, it doesn't even need to look bad according to anyone else, you know, to some societal standard. Um, but it's just not working for us anymore. What what are some actions that people can take to start this journey?

SPEAKER_01 35:26

So if you're just starting, see the like journaling, pause, intentional, worthy is all about, um, is all about acknowledging your own worthiness and realizing when lack shows up, it's a lack of worthiness, being in abundance. Uh, breath is bringing you back to your body and anchoring you into the now. And waves is the ability to feel your feelings because usually we eat them away, we scroll them away, we find some sort of a distraction because we've not been taught to be with our feelings. And I'm completing those sort of those six practices because whether you're just starting or you've been doing the work for decades, it doesn't matter. You can just start, it's a it's like a muscle that you're building to like what would you do with um using paws? It's like I would recommend those six practices, even talking about them as a practice and just beginning. You can make one promise to yourself a day. Like, I'm gonna drink, I had to do that because I kept breaking my word to myself. So I had to say, I'm gonna stick to one, I'm gonna hydrate, I'm gonna drink eight to ten glasses of water a day. And that's I'm gonna keep that commitment. And once I do that, then I can add to it. So you don't have to go from one extreme to the other, but you can just get started, right? Or I'm gonna pause. So every time I'm triggered, and you're still gonna mess this up. I still do. And what you do is it just becomes less and it becomes shorter. And it got to the point where, you know, my kids will now say, like, go grab pause, mom, take a minute, you know, like and I'll but I'll know to go sit down, right? So the practice of um of being intentional, of pausing, of journaling, of breathing, or being with our feelings is for a beginner or someone who's more who's more seasoned. And I would say if you're just starting, start small, start slow, make little promises to yourself that you will keep versus going from one extreme to the other.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

Well, I think that going from one extreme to another is part of how we self-sabotage, right? And I I can say for myself, but you know, like I know I did that time and time again. It's like, oh, yeah, and it's coming and it's just more of because it's coming from there's something wrong with me. I've got to fix myself. I'm broken or unworthy in some way. And so we make these grand promises or these grand gestures to try and like compensate for, you know, how we messed things up versus like, and and I I'm so resonate with the hydration one because that's where I started as well. And it's funny, I've fallen off since I came to California. I had been drinking four gallons of water a day and consistently for months, and then my my routine changed and I came here, and you know, so it's like, and then it's like okay, you just get to true yourself back up to it. And what do I need to put in um to get back there? And uh so it's so great.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Um and that's where love and compassion for self of going, okay, I didn't do it now. I regroup. And are my commitments to myself manageable, reasonable, and doable? Or am I gonna self-sabotage by and I I'm guilty of that too, by going from A to Z.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

Yeah. And how great is it that your kids like will say, Mom, you need to go take a pause, right? Like and that they have the freedom. I think, you know, sometimes people will comment on the way my children talk to me. And and I, you know, my response to them is I gave them, I gifted them tools to be self-expressed. I don't get to turn around and make them wrong when they express things that I don't like. Right. Now we could have conversations about, you know, what it looks like to have workability and communication and stuff like that. Because sometimes I mean I communicate things and thank God for the do-over. Like I just, you know, because when you don't manage it well, like you could just be like, can we just start this conversation again? Like I was a real joke. And you could just be responsible, right? And but I I just love that my kids have the freedom to know that like I don't own them. And I, you know, I didn't know that, like this was not from a place of consciousness, Patricia. But I've always felt that way ever since and I was very young when I had the kids. But there was just, I I never felt like they were mine, like I owned, I didn't have ownership over them. And so it was always a conversation about what are their lives going to be like, and and you know, what tools do they need, what skills do they need? How can I, how can I mentor and guide them to be able to create the life that they want versus um living out like living vicariously through them or fulfilling on some need that I have. And, you know, by it and by no means did I get it all right. I definitely, you know, there was a lot of growth for all of us along the way. Um, but I think that's something that it would serve a lot of parents to remember. They're they're not they're their own living beings from the time they're born.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Totally, a hundred percent. And I love what you're saying, and it's beautiful that you, you know, that you got that from when you had your children. Um, but here's what I will say to parents is we're so damn entitled. Okay. I'm gonna just be like straight as an arrow. Just straight. We're so damn entitled. What we first want to get is we are no greater or lesser than any other human being, including our children. And when they're acting out, when they're rude to us, when there's a behavior, there's a need behind that behavior that's not being met. And we get so stuck on the behavior and we never move past it. We're always like tuga-waring the behavior versus getting really interested in what's the need behind the behavior. I wonder why they're so frustrated with me all the time. I wonder why, you know, they don't want to hear a word I'm saying. Our kids see through all of our BS, all of it. And often we afford ourselves so much more forgiveness than we do our children. So there is a whole idea of parenting from a place of superiority that really doesn't work and it creates disconnection with us and our children. So, I mean, that's another conversation. But in the long and the short of it, is there's always a need. And if you want your children going back to self-love, if you want a deep, connected relationship with your child and the ability to make a difference for them, I think it was Gaber who said they have to look at you like they have to be your apostles to have so much admiration and respect for you that they want to hear what you have to say. And that takes work and that takes a deep commitment to your own self-love and transformational journey.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

Oh, as much as I could talk to you forever, I think that's probably a perfect place to end. Like kind of a mic drop moment. Thank you so much, Patricia. I would love to have you, I would love to have a conversation with you about conscious parenting, just and talking about that. And uh so we'll definitely have you back on the show. I uh, you know, for everyone listening, you can find out how to get a hold of Patricia and and all of that good stuff in the show notes. And before we end, I just really want to acknowledge and honor you, you know, not just for the work that you do for other people and the commitment and the stand that you are for other people's worthiness, but really who you are for me, Patricia, is someone who is so congruent. You are on the court doing this in your life day in and day in out. You are living this in your relationship with your husband and your relationship with your kids and all of your family members and friendships. And it takes something to be in that kind of alignment and congruency. And so just thank you for your commitment to yourself and to loving yourself and the difference that that makes for my for me and anyone who is blessed to know you. And thank you so much for being on the show.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

Thank you, Amber. So sweet. And you know, I just love you. I love you too. I just love you and have so much admiration for the work that you're doing and the people you're impacting and how you are unstoppable. You continue to grow and evolve. And I don't, I don't even know where Amber's gonna be in five years from now because she's just uh she's just not living with a lid.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

Thank you for the listening you grant me. For everyone listening to the show, have a great week and we will see you next week. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode. For show info, visit what wouldamberdo.com. And for information about Amber Howard and Associates' offerings and services, visit AmberHoward Inc.com.